Age of the Sky
by Grounders10
Summary: An Alien armada led by an alien god strikes at earth and Ranma finds his life thrown into chaos as Tokyo finds itself host to the greatest concentration of aliens on the planet and the largest of their spaceships. With the world at stake, Ranma spearheads an attempt to remove the leader of the invasion from the equation, but will that be the end of this madness?


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A Ranma ½ Fanfic

Age of the Sky

By: Grounders10

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**Prologue**

**The Day of Broken Skies**

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"Hold it steady." Ranma stared blandly back as he continued to hold the or of ki in his hands steady just has he had the last ten times they had performed these tests. It was amazing how boring getting poked and prodded with machines could be, especially when you had to do it twice a week.

Several months earlier it had become clear that between his own spotty school attendance in the past and the constant incidents that interrupted his study time, his grades, especially his science marks, had slipped low enough that the teachers had decided to contact his parents about them. It was pure luck that had seen them get his mother Nodoka. What had followed had been a very long, and oddly gratifying, lecture from his mother about the importance of education.

The teachers had suggested tutoring by other students and an agreement had been reached with several members of the Furinkan Physics Club to tutor him. Not that unusual, however rather than extra credit or money they had asked for one thing that Ranma was uniquely qualified to provide: a chance to examine him and his unusual abilities, including the curse that turned him into a girl and back whenever he was exposed to cold or hot water respectively. Against his better judgement he'd said yes.

So far the worst that had happened was getting soaking wet, and utterly bored.

The Furinkan High School Physics Club was odd. It hadn't existed a few years before, Physics having simply been considered a part of the purview of the Furinkan Science Club. Then Kuno had made his famous announcement about Akane Tendo and most of the club had abandoned any scientific interest to explore increasingly ludicrous ways of defeating Akane to get a chance to date her. Everyone who had retained what passed for sanity in Nerima had promptly abandoned the club and formed the Physics Club instead.

"Good, getting readings. Thermals look spiked, no radiologicals, and the UV spectrum is going nuts. Looks about normal." Announced club Vice President Kaede Fujimoto from her place at the computer which most of the sensor equipment in the room was plugged into.

Sitting on a chair behind her the mousy club President Ayako Araya nodded and brushed a lock of brown hair behind her ear before making a note on her tablet. "And the new sensors?" She asked.

"Coming online." There was a click and whirr as many of the odd looking sticks, doodads, and plastic thingies around Ranma had power lights come on. "Okay… Ranma move it around."

He waved the orb of ki side to side.

Kaede nodded. "Looking good…. Huh. That's interesting." She said.

"Good interesting or bad?" Ranma asked, remembering the week before when several sensors had decided to give up on life in a spectacular fashion. He'd had to get a haircut to even things out.

"Your hair will be safe." Ayako said as she stepped over to take a look. "Huh, yeah that's… That's from the one Kenta made isn't it?"

"Yep. And it isn't blowing the sensor out this time." Kaede said. In the background one of the other three club members, a tall boy with short black hair, pumped his fist and high fived the plump boy next to him.

"Yes!" He crowed.

"Well that's good." Ayako replied as she examined the reading. "We've actually got a solid reading on it for once. Kenta, what did you use for it this time?"

"One low-quality Topaz mounted in an array of copper and encased in wood." Kenta said proudly, "Saotome made a comment last week about how people infuse wood with Ki to strengthen it. Figured it would be worth a try to see if it enhanced the reading."

"Well good work then. Right, we've got a clear reading for once. Saotome, spike it." The club president said.

Ranma blinked. "What?" He asked.

She glanced up at him. "Increase the output. I want to see how far we can push this thing." She said.

He glanced down at the orb. It had about half the potential of one of his usual energy blasts at the moment. It was dead simple for him to hold it at this level. "You sure you want to risk it? I rather like my hair." He protested.

"So do I." The third girl in the club chimed in from her desk in the back corner. Rin Morimoto was a bit of an odd girl compared to the other two in the club. Where Kaede was average and Ayako was mousy, Rin was… weird. She had dyed her hair a dark green at some point far enough back that no one could say for sure what her original hair colour had been. The three desks she had taken for herself were covered in a half dozen computers and littered with energy drink bottles and magical girl figurines. A large Sailor Moon poster was spot welded to the wall behind her.

"Shush you." The club president pointed at Rin disapprovingly. "The advance of science requires a daring will." The hand swivelled to point at Ranma. "Now spike it Saotome."

Sighing he bumped his output by a bit. Behind Ayako the two boys were taking cover behind desks.

"Higher. Come on." Ayako said as she watched the sensor. "Higher! Push it Saotome."

He stared at her for a moment before glancing down at the orb, now five times as big as it had been before and well over usual power he put into his attacks. "Uh… not a good idea." He said as he carefully held the equivalent of a fairly sizeable bomb in his hands. It was starting to take more than a bit of focus to keep it stable.

"Oh come on, the sensors haven't even started smoking yet." The club president groaned.

"Pres." Kaede coughed into her hand. "Remember the agreement."

Ranma pretended to not hear the uncharitable comment that followed the reminder that he had final say on any experiments involving ki. If the orb he was holding in his hands destabilized he'd be fine.

They'd be dead.

"Fiiine!" Ayako whined, crossing her arms. "Dial it back Saotome. We'll move onto the normal routine. Kaede run him through it. Kenta, Hiroshi, let's take a look at we got so far."

Ranma slowly reabsorbed the orb of ki, wincing a bit as it burned a touch from picking up a bit of the natural ki that simply existed in the world. Once that was done things transitioned smoothly into what had long since become the normal routine. He ran through a few kata while channeling as much Ki as he could into his actions without damaging the area and experimented with a few small scale ki manifestations. It was good practice in control if nothing else, but after ten weeks it was a bit boring.

After finishing the first run through Kaede handed him a bottle of cold water. "Ayako, we're about to record the switch." She called to the president who looked up from her tablet.

"Oh?" She wandered over to watch the live feed. "Go ahead Saotome."

With a sigh Ranma popped open the water bottle and poured half of it out over himself. The two girls oohed at something on the screen as his curse triggered and he went from a nearly six feet tall with black hair guy to a four foot eleven, if you counted hair, red haired girl.

Taking a sip of water she waited for the two girls to finish oohing at the readings. "Right." Ayako said, turning from the screen. "We got readings from the curse that time. Everything changed so if you don't mind just running through all of that again please?" Their agreement meant it wasn't a request.

Ranma sighed and started back into her routine when Kaede signalled she was ready.

A half hour later they wound things down and Kaede disconnected the few sensors they normally placed on her. "Okay, well we've made a lot more progress this time." She said with a smile.

"That tends to happen when your equipment stops exploding." Rin opined from her computer.

Kaede ignored her clubmate. "Well, that's it for today. You can get going." She shot a glance at the president. "We're… going to be here a while I think."

Ranma glanced at Ayako. The mousy girl was furiously going over information on three tablets, a laptop, a desktop, and co-ordinating with the two boys in the group. "I'll just... leave then." Ranma said after a moment.

"Probably best." Kaede said, "I'll see you tomorrow for the tutoring session."

"Yeah. See you then." Ranma grabbed her bag from where it hung by the door and ducked out of the basement room. Behind her voices were getting louder with excitement, even after she shut the door. As far as she was concerned, however, she was going to have to run now unless she wanted to be late for dinner.

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Ranma sighed as she stepped through the gate of the Tendo dojo and shut it behind her. It was nice to get home, away from the constant poking and prodding of the club. Well, nice until she inevitably ran into whatever insanity had decided to make itself at home with them today. Relaxed feeling ruined she walked up to the front door with the caution of someone entering a minefield.

Of course most people who walked into a minefield didn't normally set it the first mine off by announcing their presence with a shout of, "I'm back!" Kasumi would have been annoyed if she didn't do that, however.

As she removed her shoes her mother, Nodoka Saotome, poked her head around the corner. The older redhead frowned on spotting her. "Oh, Ranma you're home. How was school? And what was it this time? The washer lady? A fire hydrant? I know it wasn't rain." Of course her mother started getting worked up about her being a girl first.

Ranma rolled her eyes. "It was Ayako. They finally figured out how to pick up ki with their toys and wanted readings." She said, standing back up and walking towards her mum. "Any food left?" If this was six months ago she'd have put odds on her pops having eaten everything. Her mother had been making sure that there was something left for her since she had joined them at the Tendos.

"You just made it, we're about to eat. And she couldn't have made sure there was hot water available?" Her mother tisked.

Ranma shrugged. "She was completely absorbed with her toys when I left. If there was anything I doubt she'd have remembered it existed even if I'd asked." She said with a shrug as they turned the corner of the hallway on the way to the dining room. As they passed the kitchen Ranma spied the eldest Tendo daughter putting together the last few preparations for dinner.

"Hello Kasumi." She said as they passed.

The long-haired brunette glanced up from her work and smiled. "Welcome home Ranma. Going to need some hot water?" She asked.

"If you don't mind Kasumi." Ranma's mother responded before Ranma could. "I'll be back to help you bring out the food in a moment."

"I'll get some water heating then." Kasumi hummed as they reached the dining room and the sliding rice paper door that separated it from the rest of the house.

Ranma opened the door and paused. The other two Tendo daughters were sitting at the low table watching the TV as usual while they waited. Her pops, an overweight balding man in a scruffy looking white karate gi; and Soun Tendo, a mustachioed man with long black hair who was also wearing a green karate gi; were sitting at the shogi table on the porch. While the two girls turned to look as the door slid open the two men were staring intently at each other over the game board. Neither willing to look away lest the other attempt to rearrange the board.

"Hey Saotome. You're back. Done being a good little guinea pig?" Nabiki, the middle sister, snarked around the cookie she was snacking on.

"Nabiki! You know why he's doing this." Akane prodded her sister in the shoulder with her own cookie, only to squawk as her older sister promptly stole the cookie.

Ranma rolled her eyes and dropped her bag by the door before taking a seat beside Akane. The dark blue haired girl turned a curious look to Ranma as she grabbed a replacement for her cookie from a platter. Ranma grabbed one as well.

"So, you're later than usual." Akane said expectantly. Ranma sighed around her cookie. She could already hear the gears in Akane's brain grinding themselves towards some worst case conclusion. Honestly, for a girl who said she didn't want to marry Ranma she spent a lot of time being jealous.

"They figured out how to pick up ki with some new toy." Ranma said. The truth was best for heading Akane's tendencies off… unless the truth involved Shampoo trying to glomp her, or food at Ucchans, or… yeah…

"Really? So soon?" Akane exclaimed. Everyone else in the room turned to them. Out of the corner of her eye Ranma spotted her pops rearrange the shogi board before turning.

"An impressive achievement." Soun said, stroking his chin. "I can't say I expected them to manage it. Though, now that I have I have to wonder if this was a good idea. Ki is quite dangerous for the untrained."

Ranma shrugged. "They've figured out how to pick it up, not how to use it." She said, grabbing another cookie and nibbling on it.

"And they're not likely to. Ki requires a person's will to direct it." Genma said with a grumble. "You can't do that with a machine. Not to mention where are they supposed to get it? We draw our Ki from within. A machine can't generate ki. This whole thing is a waste of time."

"Be that as it may," Ranma's mother said, "they are helping our son pass this year so it does not matter if it is a waste of time for them, it is helping Ranma." She had been the one who had arranged the entire thing during a long talk with the Vice-Principal… after Ranma had vetoed working with the actual science club. That club was full of perverts, freaks, and stalkers of Akane. Also they all hated Ranma for one reason or another, most of them imagined.

Ranma would still claim she didn't mean to blow up their club house when fighting Ryouga a year ago. Of course Karma tended to come back violently when you attempt to install cameras in the locker rooms. Ryouga had been quite happy to help her stage the fight when she mentioned that bit.

Genma grumbled but nodded. "Yes, well… Boy, don't be giving away too many of our secrets." He grumbled, for a moment being almost as unintelligible as when he was a Panda due to his Jusenkyo curse.

Ranma sighed. "All I do is stand there most of the time." She said. Personally she was rather curious to see if they could manage to do something. Ki was incredibly versatile and Ranma knew that despite her own ability with it she had barely cracked the surface of what could be done. If they could manage to create something that could use ki without a person? Well, who knew what they'd manage to do with it.

At that moment Kasumi appeared in the doorway. "Dinner is ready." She said, carrying a tray of food to the table.

"Ah, I'll get the rest Kasumi." Nodoka said, ducking back out of the room.

Soun stood up and stretched, either ignoring or not noticing the board and Genma's grimace as he realized that their game was probably not going to be continued, making his creative rearranging pointless. Grumbling good naturedly about it Genma stood and joined the Tendo Patriarch in moving over to the table.

As everyone settled into a normal average dinner Ranma reflected that home could be quite nice. You know, when the chaos didn't decide to come knocking for once. Though, well there was the next hour, and the hour after that…

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Two weeks later Ranma cracked open the door of the physics club's room and peered inside. It looked like a small bomb had gone off at some point. About what he had expected given the near manic energy that had seemingly possessed Ayako since they had finally gotten readings on his ki. Unusually, however, the only one in the room was Rin.

The green-haired girl was sitting at her table packing up her laptop. She glanced up as he entered. "Heya Saotome." She waved, slipping her laptop into a bag before tossing it over her shoulder. "We're outside today. Pres wants some outdoor testing. We've taken over the soccer pitch. C'mon." She marched straight passed him, humming as she dashed out the door.

"Shouldn't this be locked?" He called after her. She paused some thirty feet down the hall and spun on her feet to run back. Once the door was locked he led the way back out, the green-haired girl trailing behind with a blush.

It didn't take long to find the rest of the club setting up their equipment under a tent on the field. Ayako glanced up from her tablet as they approached. "Hello Saotome." She grinned before shooting a look at Rin. "Table at the back is for you." She said.

"Hey Ayako. What prompted this?" Ranma asked as Rin dashed past to set up.

The club president grinned widely and gestured to the field where Kenta and HIroshi were setting up equipment. "Well, we're trying to figure out how to use these sensors to triangulate powerful sources of Ki. In theory it shouldn't be any harder than doing the same thing with radio or radiation, but we haven't had a chance to try it and the basement is a bit small." She shrugged. "So today you get to sit out in the open and relax."

Ranma glanced up at the overcast skies. Knowing the time of year and local weather, plus having checked the forecast he's put money on it raining sometime before this experiment was up. A fact that Ayako was undoubtedly aware of since she'd already set up several tents. Not for the first time he wondered where they were getting their funding to be able to afford this much stuff.

"Got an umbrella?" He asked.

She shook her head with a smile. "All out of spares." She said, "I'm sure it'll be fine."

He sighed. "Fine. Where do you need me to sit?" He asked.

"Over here for now." She said, leading him over to a folding chair in the middle of the field. The sensors were placed quite a ways from the chair in different corners of the field. "You'll need to move a few times, but we shouldn't need you to do much more than sit there."

She left him alone in the field and he took his seat with a sigh. He popped open his bag and pulled out a notepad and pen. If he was going to be sitting still for a while he might as well get to work on his homework. At least until it started raining.

As far as experiments went this was probably the least involved he had ever been. 'Stand here', 'move over there', 'wait'. That was all he was told as he shifted around the field, taking his bag and chair with him each time. Meanwhile, Kenta and Hiroshi ran around the field with tape measures and yardsticks. Honestly, it was rather boring.

The rain was still holding off when, about an hour into the tests, Kaede called him back to the tent. He slipped his notepad back into his bag and jogged across the field to them.

"Something wrong?" He asked as he stepped into the safety of the tent.

"Take a look at this." Ayako waved him over to where they were all gathered around Rin's laptop. He walked around the table and looked over the shoulder of Kenta. On the screen was a program he had seen a few times before. It interpreted the signals the sensors picked up and displayed them as some form of graph. He had seen more than a few different set ups over the last few weeks as they developed the program. Right now it seemed to be showing current and past readings. Three boxes along the top showed bars that seemed to have maxed out while the bottom showed an ongoing history of recorded levels. The last couple minutes were maxed out.

"The hell." He muttered, leaning forward. "This is the ki sensors right?"

"That's right. Everything was going fine until a couple minutes ago. Then the Ki levels just started rising ridiculously on all three sensors." Kaede said, shooting him a glance. "Have you felt anything."

He frowned. "No. Look, I can sense Ki, but unless it's my own I need to be looking for it. It takes concentration." He said, though now that he was paying even a little attention he could feel a strange weight in the air, like it was heavier than it should be.

"Can you try it?" Ayako asked, "Try and find what's causing this I mean."

"Sure." He said, frowning at the computer. "How high was it before this?"

"You mean how much of you were we picking up?" Ayako asked.

"Yeah."

She reached down and tapped a very low spot on the strength vs. time graph. "This is what you give off just sitting there." She said.

"That's… How much larger does that make this one?" He asked as he took over one of the nearby chairs.

"Our scale isn't perfect yet. We're still trying to properly quantity things." Kaede said, interjecting herself. "Our current setup is just a measurement of how close we are to breaking the sensor. Theoretically anyway." The sensor's that Kenta had set up were amazingly durable, at least to anything Ranma had been able to do that didn't involve blasting it directly. Unlike their early ones which burned up the moment he so much as flexed a muscle, they had yet to actually see one of these ones break.

"I'd put it at several orders of magnitude higher than what you did last week at the very least." Ayako said.

Ranma sighed and settled into the chair. He took a deep, steadying breath and exhaled slowly, trying to sink into a not-quite meditative state. Sensing Ki was not easy, even for him. He had met Priests who could do so while fully cognizant of their surroundings, but their uses of ki were far more subtle than his own and their training was weighted towards the abstract uses of ki rather than the direct forms like his own. He could probably do just as well if he had the time, but time was a scarce commodity in Nerima.

It took a few minutes to manage, but when he managed it it was brutal and sudden. One moment, nothing; the next, it was as though he was being drowned in a deluge of ki that was pouring out of the sky. Startled by it his concentration broke and he nearly toppled out of his chair with a gasp.

Hiroshi caught him as he teetered on the edge of the chair. "Easy." The plump boy said, "Easy. I got you Saotome."

Ranma shook his head to clear it. What the hell was that?

"What happened?" Ayako demanded, "What's going on?"

"I-" Ranma began. He was cut off as a boom roared above them and the sky rumbled. It wasn't the rumble of thunder, more like a jet. A very low flying one. "The sky." He said. "It's coming from above."

Exchanging glances Ayako and Kaede walked out of the tent and looked up. Everyone walked out, though Ranma trailed behind as he was still shaking off his experience. "What is that?" He heard Kaede ask as he stepped out of cover.

"What's what?" He asked, and she simply point up. He followed her finger up to spot a ball of fire blazing across the sky. The rumble didn't seem to be coming from it though, that felt like it was coming from everywhere above them as it grew greater and greater.

"A large meteor?" Ayako suggested, "Oh god. It's going straight for downtown."

"Not quite." Ranma said, eyeing the blazing fireball. Everyone except Kenta looked to him. "It'll land in Chiyoda. Probably in one of the gardens." Assuming he was guessing the angles right from this far away. Distance meant his guess could be as far off as a kilometer or two.

Before anyone could say anything Kenta shouted, "Look! More of them!" It started with one more fireball, then another, then four, and ten after that. In the blink of an eye the number of fireballs multiplied beyond Ranma's ability to count accurately. Hundreds at least, probably thousands of them if not more, plummeted towards the ground in all directions. It didn't matter which way they turned more fireballs could be seen heading for the ground.

As they watched in stunned disbelief Ranma noticed something a bit odd. "They're all the same size." He shouted.

"What?" Ayako turned to him, "That's not possible. Nothing natural could create this many identical meteors."

"Then it isn't natural." Kaede said, picking up on Ranma's thoughts. "And those aren't meteors."

"Then what are they?" Hiroshi asked. The first few fireballs impacted the ground and they could feel the soft rumbles of the impacts through their feet. The world shuddered with each successive strike until it felt as though they were in an unending, though very minor, earthquake.

No one answered as they continued to watch the disaster unfold. Rather belatedly air raid sirens began to sound around the city, the wailing only adding to the cacophony that was assaulting their ears.

Then Ranma noticed them, a trio of fireballs that was heading straight towards them. Well not straight straight so much as they were headed for their area. "Guys, we need to get inside." He said. He wasn't sure how well the building would hold up to a direct hit from one of these things, but it had to be better than getting pasted to the ground. "We've gone a few coming here."

"What? And miss out!?" Ayako protested, "This has to be an unprecedented event. Who knows what we'd miss if we went inside. Besides, those things could destroy the building with us in it anyway." To punctuate her point a fireball crashed down a few blocks away. Rin winced and Hiroshi shifted to put Ranma between him and the crash site. The president just grinned and started filming with her tablet.

Before Ranma could protest again Kaede shouted, "Move it you idiot!" and grabbed Ayako by the collar before dragging the president and Rin down behind one of the tables which she knocked over. Ranma cursed and dragged Kenta and Hiroshi back behind the tables as well.

Then the far end of the soccer pitch disappeared in a ball of fire and dust.

The shockwave knocked away the tent covering them. Their table tried to follow it, but Ranma kept a grip on it, keeping it pinned to the ground. As the dust began to settle he spared an annoyed look for Ayako. "I said it was coming here." He said before peering over the edge of the table.

"Yeah, yeah." The brunette muttered as she and the rest, except for Rin who was sitting in a ball clutching her laptop like her life depended on it, joined him in looking into the dust cloud.

There was a loud concussive _bang_ and a glowing red object blew out of the dust cloud and off across the field, tumbling end over end and leaving a line of small trenches in its wake. Three more bangs followed, though only one more glowing object flew out of the dust. Silence fell for a moment, ignoring the concussive crashes of more fireballs raining down across the region.

"Is that it?" Rin asked, finally poking her head above the table.

"No." Ranma said. He was getting a really bad feeling about this, and his time in Nerima had taught him to trust that sort of feeling. "You need to run, now."

"But-" He shot a glare at Ayako as she tried to protest. Her mouth closed with a click and she nodded.

"Run for the school. Now." He ordered, passing his bag to Kenta.

"The equipment-" Kaede started, gesturing to the scattered laptops and other electronics.

"I've got the data on my laptop." Rin interrupted.

There was a loud crack and a strange squealing sound came from within the cloud. It was time to go. "Go." He said again. Kenta gulped.

"Wish me luck." The tall nerd said, patting him on the shoulder before taking a deep breath and sprinting towards the school. That was enough, everyone started running, including Ranma. He kept pace as they sprinted for the gymnasium's side door. Behind them the squealing was growing louder, and was joined by an odd metallic clicking noise.

Ranma spared a glance back. He could make out shapes in the dust now, large shadows taller and broader than a man.

Kenta was a consummate nerd, glasses and a calculator in his shirt pocket at all time, but he also had the build of a runner and made a habit of running two and from school everyday. With Ranma pacing the slowest person in the group, Hiroshi, it was Kenta who slammed into the gymnasium door first. He pulled it open and waved at them to hurry up.

"Come on." He called back to them as he held the door open.

Ranma winced as the squealing changed tone. He didn't need to look back to know that whatever was in the dust cloud was now looking right at them. As the girls dashed through the open door Kenta cursed.

"What the hell is that?" He said at the same moment Ranma heard a grunt followed by the sound of something cutting through the air.

With one hand he grabbed Hiroshi and tossed him through the doors before spinning in place, arm fully outstretched to the side. The haft of a throwing axe half as tall as he was slammed into his palm. It would have cut Kenta in two if he hadn't caught it. The axe was made from a strange matte grey metal that felt heavier than he would have expected even from a steel axe that size.

The owner of the axe gave a grunt and Ranma looked up in time to see it yank another axe, this one taller than Ranma, from the ground. It's blade snapped alight with brilliant white flames, casting the beast's face in excellent detail. It was taller than Ranma, more than twice the height of a full grown man and possessed of enough breadth to appear stocky despite its stature. Its face looked squashed and pig-like with large irregularly shaped tusks protruding from the corners of its lip. What skin that was visible beneath the bulky black armour it wore was brown with the occasional pinkish splotch.

Hefting its weapon it snorted, a squeal like noise that grated the ears, before doing what Ranma could only assume was speak to the other three large piggish creatures that stepped up beside it. It was hard to tell though, its voice sounded like a pig being murdered with a blender to him. Whatever it said seemed to amuse the other three.

Well whatever they were, they weren't friendly.

Their laughter cut out as the throwing axe buried itself at their feet. "Yo!" Ranma waved, "Do you understand me? Can you speak Japanese? Or english. I can do english if you're smart enough to talk."

The first, and largest, bent down and picked up the throwing axe. It struggled a moment to pull it out, but soon hefted the blade in its three fingered left hand. It squealed at him and mimed drawing the blade of the axe across its neck while pointing at him with the large one.

Ranma replied maturely and flipped it both middle fingers. While he doubted it knew what that meant it seemed to get the gist of it as it attached the throwing axe to his back and hefted the two handed great axe in both pudgy hands before squealing something at him that the other three echoed.

"Ranma?" Kenta called.

"Get inside." Ranma ordered, interposing himself between the door and the pigmen. The nerd nodded and ducked inside, slamming the door behind himself.

The pigmen snorted at him and all four of them adjusted the grips of their weapons, all large axes. In the distance behind the pigmen another fireball plowed into a ten story apartment building, sending debris raining down. Ranma slid into a defensive stance and waited. Outnumbered and with no idea of what the capabilities Finally, the first one lost patience as it bellowed something and charged. The other three snorted and followed at a languid pace.

The beast's speed was… a lot slower than Ranma had feared. Even accounting for size Akane moved a lot faster than it. He could see the care it put into each step as it charged forwards, each foot pounding large prints into the dry dirt. It was trained, and probably had plenty of experience.

But it was so slow.

Charging in blade raised it swung at him with an overhead strike. Stepping to the side the blow breezed passed to thump into the dirt. Chunks of burnt and burning turf went flying in all directions as Ranma spun into a kick that he planted squarely into its side.

Squealing like he'd stuck it with a hot iron the pigman flew down the length of the building and straight across the yard into the outer fence, which exploded into scattered stone as over one thousand pounds of muscle and metal plowed straight through it. He grabbed the axe, left buried in the ground by its owner, and tossed it towards the other pigmen. Despite staring after the first, and largest, of their number with dumb shock the one he aimed for managed to bring up his axe to deflect the thrown weapons. They snarled and as a group charged him.

They were about the same as the first. Maybe a bit slower, a bit less graceful, if that word could even be applied to half a ton of pigman. The didn't all charge directly at him, there simply wasn't room for all three to attack him at once. He was too small, and they took up a lot of space.

The first one came in swinging its axe low. He stepped forward into its charge, driving an elbow into the beast's stomach while catching the haft of the axe with his other hand. It hacked and doubled over coughing as he yanked the axe from its hands and spun away, avoiding an overhead slash from the next pigman. He hooked the back of the axe, which was not aflame like the one possessed by the largest pigman, around the back of the second's knee and swept its legs out from under it. The ground jumped a bit as the pigman went down hard.

The last of the pigmen charged in shoulder first, trying to tackle Ranma to the ground with his greater mass. Ranma dropped the axe and met the charge head on. The pigman lost as Ranma's shoulder check sent the creature rolling across the ground for a dozen meters.

He looked around at the pigmen. Each one seemed to be fighting for their breath as they struggled to their knees or their feet. All three were giving him wary looks as they collected their reached for their weapons again.

"You know that's a dumb idea." He told the nearest one honestly. It squealed something back at him and made a gesture with its hands. He sighed. He was reluctant to just kill them, but they had just dropped in on them and promptly tried to kill them all without warning. He spared a moment to look back at where they had arrived. With the dust cloud gone it was easy to see what the 'fireballs' actually were.

Two large tear-shaped pods of the same matte grey metal as the axes sat in craters nearly as deep as they were tall and wider across than Ryouga's normally were. He looked up at the sky and the hundreds more falling from the sky. This wasn't some freak occurrence.

This was an invasion. Letting them live… was… He sighed. Letting them live was not an option then.

A loud squeal sounded over the yard and Ranma looked back towards where the first one had flown. It was standing in the hole in the outer wall, its armour broken and blood running down one side of its face. The pigman spat a glob of blood on the ground and started shouting something at the other three.

All of them shouted back the exact same thing, a chorus of squeals that grated the ears, and dropped to their knees. He could see the one closest start to carve something into the dirt. The lines of which were beginning to glow.

"No you don't." He snapped. He was not adding magic to the list of things he had to deal with today. He threw himself at the pigman, grabbing the axe as he went by. It looked up and squealed in surprise as he brought the weapon down on its head. The blade passed easily through its raised arms and through the skull and chest before thumping into the ground. Blood sprayed in all directions as the pigman fell apart.

Ranma gagged and tried to suppress the urge to vomit at the stench. Only the fact that he still had three more to deal with helped him keep it down. He was already too late to stop the other two grunts when he turned away from the corpse. The glowing light of the marks carved into the dirt had flowed up and across their torsos, sinking into their skin as it went leaving engorged muscles and red skin behind.

The second grunt brought its own axe up to block as Ranma swung the axe around his body in a horizontal strike. The block kept the blade from cutting the pigman, however that was due to the resilience of the haft of the weapon and not due to whatever power the creature had summoned. His strike plowed through the block, slamming both weapons into the beast and catapulting it into the school building. Concrete and steel crumbled as the creature slammed into the wall, causing a portion of the building to collapse onto it. It didn't get up again.

The last of the grunts howled in rage and charged him again. Its movements were faster than before, less a lumbering charge and more comparable to a galloping horse. He ran to meet it, ducking the wild swing it sent his way and slamming the axe straight into its chest. Its armour and flesh parted as easily as the first.

Wiping the blood off his face he turned away from the third corpse to the first and last of the pigmen. It was still chanting, a brownish red light coming from a glowing circle carved into the ground around it. In its left hand was a long thin knife while its right had worked the latches on its armour. The front plate fell away as Ranma broke into a sprint towards it. Its knife came up, and plunged smoothly into its right breast. It squealed shrilly, and then fell silent as it doubled over. The light around it pulsed once, twice, then a shockwave of air imbued with ki rolled out from it.

Taken off guard Ranma ran straight into it. He flew back across the yard, the axe he had been using spinning out of his hands to embed itself into the wall of the school building. Picking himself up he was ready when a second shockwave rolled out from the swelling form of the pigman. It buffeted him, but he stayed standing. As he watched the pigman continued to swell, its skin writhing across its frame as its body expanded from within. It grew upwards and out until the red light dimmed and faded out, leaving behind a pigman who was as tall as the gymnasium beside it with blood red skin.

It squealed something at him, a sound that was deep enough to rattle his bones, and took a step forward. The ground jumped and shook as it calmly walked across the field towards him.

"And now its a kaiju." Ranma grumbled. Well, it was a bit too small to be a kaiju, but it was closer than he'd prefer for his liking. Especially since he had to fight it. It seemed to sense his distaste since it chuckled and said something. Ranma scowled.

Then there was a bright flash and thunder rolled across the field as the beast stumbled, its flesh smoking in places. Ranma stared, had it just been struck by lightning? It hadn't even started- a drop of cool water struck his nose, then another hit his forehead. In moments it went from a dry, if overcast, day to a downpour as sheets of water fell onto them.

Ranma adjusted her shirt and scowled at the beast which was now blinking at her with a flummoxes expression. "Just got to love the timing don'tcha." She growled before sprinting across the rapidly muddying ground towards the beast. It wasn't going to stay stunned forever, by the lightning or by her transformation, so she had best take advantage while she had the opportunity.

The creature reacted faster than she'd have like. Moving with far greater swiftness it took a swing at her with both fists in an overhead blow. She hopped to the side and kicked off the ground as the blow cratered the ground where she would have been. She flipped up onto the back of the giant pigman's hand and sprinted up the arms.

It squealed and lurched backwards, flailing its arms as it tried to get away. The action threw her high up into the air above it and she twisted to keep an eye on it as she flew higher. Thankfully the flailing had sent her upward rather than outward and she was able to track the beast easily, of course it could also track her, but then that would make her next move more effective.

As Ranma began to fall it followed her, its steps creating deeper holes in the damp soil with every minute. From above the soccer field already looked less like a school yard and more like a warzone with craters and bodies strewn across it. It would take ages for the school to fix it. That suited Ranma fine, it meant school would be closed a bit longer after this. So it was without remorse she added yet another crater to the landscape.

Just before she fell into the giant's reach she held out both hands and channeled her ki, giving it shape and power with her confidence until twin glowing orbs formed in front of her palms. It was a process she had done dozens, hundreds of times now and it was so instinctive that it took a mere blink of the eye to form.

"Moko Takabisha double." She stated, unleashing her ki in a pair coruscating golden beams. The beams caught the beast on the shoulders, driving it down into the dirt before detonating. As the blast cleared and Ranma landed a short ways away from the giant hole she had added to the yard she stared in shock as the giant struggled back to its feet in spite of its injuries. Her strike had torn gaping holes through its shoulders, nearly ripping its arms clean off, and a large portion of its chest cavity had been opened up. A cavity full of thorny glowing brown vines.

As she watched the vines grew outwards, filling in the holes she had made before fading away into its skin, leaving not a trace of her attack. "That's not fair." She complained as it finished climbing to its feet and turned to snarl and squeal at her. She leapt back as it charged forward swinging once again. She ducked and weaved, bouncing out of the way of each strike easily.

It was like fighting an even more brutish Ryouga. Ranma snorted at the thought. Brutish, but still a discount version. It could come back from a hit and it had strength, but its might was entire in its strength. It had no durability or speed. It could regenerate, but nearly any strike could hurt it.

She flipped backwards, passing inches over the red skinned fist that had tried to pancake her again before kicking off one of the school's trees as it was snapped in half. She needed to stop its regeneration somehow. If she could do that then it was as good as dead. But… She frowned as she sidestepped another overhead double-fisted blow before bouncing away as the creature tried to translate it into a sweep.

But how to stop it? This was magic, and while she had quite a bit of experience surviving magic, that didn't translate into knowledge of magic. This was a ritual of some kind, but what its limits were she hadn't a clue.

She leaped onto its arm and ran up it again. This time the beast tried to sweep her off with its other hand, an attempt she easily jumped over before unleashing another moko takabisha into its face, this time a single one. Its head exploded, but even then as it tumbled backwards the vines were once again recreating it from scratch.

Then she spotted it. Impaled in its right chest was the knife from earlier, still buried to the hilt. It glowed the same brown as the vines until they faded away leaving only the beast's unblemished skin behind. The giant roared its displeasure, sounding even more guttural than it had before she'd blown what passed for its brains across the field. It rolled to its feet and lunged at her again. The ground shook and leapt again as it crashed down on nothing, leaving yet another crater.

She landed in front of its face, palm outstretched. Even lying face first on the ground it still looked down at her. Another moko takabisha obliterated its head again. She followed it up with a second, and then a third. The concussive force of the blasts flipped the immense beast onto its back and ripped its right arm off. A fourth shot caught it in mid-flip, crashing into its right breast and the dagger. The flesh around it exploded, but the knife remained sticking into something just beneath the skin as the vines filled in the space once again.

With a growl of frustration she leaped up onto the chest as the vines faded away. Before its head could finish reforming she grabbed the handle of the dagger and hissed in pain as it grew thorny spikes that somehow managed to draw blood from her. Planting a hand on the chest and pushing with both it and her feet she pulled on the dagger. For a long moment nothing happened as she applied her full strength to the effort, enough force to lift and throw a tank accomplished nothing for several seconds. Then, as the brown light faded and the beast's head finished reforming there was a wet tearing noise and the beast screamed as the dagger moved a little. Then it moved a little more, dragging the beast's flesh with it. Its skin tore away, revealing the vines beneath, all of which seemed to be clinging to, or perhaps coming from, the dagger.

With a growl Ranma pointed her hand at the vines and unleashed another moko takabisha into the bundle of vines that clung to the dagger. The blast that followed threw her clear of the beast, dagger still clutched in her hand. She crashed to the ground a hundred feet away and looked up to see the beast clutching at the spot where the dagger had been. It let out a pitiful squeal and reached one hand out towards the sky, before falling limp.

Ranma sighed and let herself fall back to the ground. "Oh god." She groaned, "That was annoying." She threw the dagger, which still bore some vines hanging from it, to the side and stood up, giving herself a look over.

"Bleh. This'll never wash out." She lamented as she realized she was soaked in the thing's blood. Some was already washing away with the rain, but most of it had already sunk into her clothes. She could only imagine how bad she must have smelt.

Complaining to herself about the mess she walked across the field, passing by the beast's corpse, and back to the gymnasium. The building looked significantly worse than it had a short while before, with holes having been knocked into it and part of the wall had been brought down by the constant small earthquakes her battle had caused. As she approached she spotted not just the physics club peeking out of holes, but at least another dozen students and several members of the staff.

"RANMA!" Ayako waved, climbing out of one of the holes rather than use the door that was five feet to the right. "YOU'RE ALIVE!"

Ranma snorted. "Was that supposed to kill me?" She pointed back over her shoulder at the pigmen. "That was annoying, not dangerous."

The club president snorted. "I think you and I have very different definitions of dangerous." She said with a frown, pausing a few steps from Ranma to look the redhead up and down. "God, you're a mess…."

"Is any of that yours?" Kaede asked as she stepped out through the door like a sensible person.

"Other than my left hand? Nope." Ranma shrugged, giving her hand a look over. It was dotted with small pinpricks of blood where the thorns had managed to just barely piece her skin.

"Let me see." Kaede stepped over as others began to exit the building.

"Inside. It isn't safe out here." Ranma said, waving the vice-president off.

"She's right." Ayako nodded, "We should-" Whatever they should be doing, though Ranma could guess, was drowned out by a loud roar as a beam of blue light scythed through the clouds and carved a path through the distant skyscrapers closer to the Bay. Three more followed it, each one heralded by rolling thunder that drowned out all other sounds.

Blinking spots out of her eyes Ranma, and everyone else, looked up to where the rays of light had come from. The source became apparent moments later as a matte grey fin-like shape cut through the bottom of the clouds like a shark. The fin grew, becoming easily as long as a city bus before the clouds parted beneath a broad curved surface of the same metal.

"A spaceship." Ayako said, her awed voice barely audible through the ringing in Ranma's ears. "They're aliens. Oh god. They're aliens." She made a high pitched squealing noise that made everyone around them wince. "Oh this is exciting."

Ranma shot her an annoyed glance as Kaede shouted for Ayako to take things more seriously. Tuning out their argument the winded redhead looked up at the ship that was descending on a course towards the center of the city. Two more beams of light scythed out, toppling several skyscrapers and silencing the argument beside her. As the ringing subsided again she turned to the rest of the students and the teachers.

"So, I'm going back to the dojo. Who here wants to come with me?" She asked. She needed a change of clothes, and hopefully some assistance, before she decided whether or not she really, really, really needed to go out and fight an honest to god spaceship.

Everyone put their hands up.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A/N: hello everyone~ Welcome to another story of mine~ *Floofs nine tails* So here we have a story that has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while now. It's gone through a few different designs. At one point it was a Ranma/Sailor Moon/Mass Effect crossover. Right now its straight Ranma with a bit of inspiration pulled from the f2p MMO Skyforge. (Fun combat, really terrible micro-transactions though far from the worst I've seen… *stares at CoD bops 3* yeah, just going to leave that there…)

This will be a Girl!Ranma story with a planned romance between Ranma and Ryouga. I don't normally like giving away spoilers but a lot of people tend to get annoyed when you don't announce this sort of thing right off the bat these days. *sad kitsune* I hope you've enjoyed the story so far, even if you don't stay. If you do, know that this will be joining my secondary story list, that is to say those stories which may be updated infrequently, or three times in a month depending entirely upon my mood.

P.S. And a thank you to  Gekkou_Yoko for being my editor again

Gekkou_Yoko here, Ello *Floofs her three tails*


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